Sex Research Takes a Strange Turn

Benoit Denizet-Lewis had his sexual physiology studied at Cornell University. The study involved looking at whether his pupils dilated in response to various erotic images. As a gay man, he found the results a bit surprising.

When presented with sexual images of women, his pupils dilated almost twice as much as most gay men. Almost as much as a straight man.

Other men's results have been equally surprising. One man's pupils dilated strongly to images of men, but he stated he was only interested in women. Another claimed to be "50-50 bisexual" but had the pupil responses of a completely straight man.

What's going on?

Welcome to the brave new world of sex research, where the old truism that "human sexuality is complex" is being confirmed in new and unexpected ways.

The complexity of female sexuality has long been assumed. But findings a decade ago on women startled even the experts. Women who were shown erotic images of various kinds tended to report excitement consistent with their sexual orientation -- gay or straight. But their genitals told a different story: Women tended to lubricate willy-nilly, to images of gay sex, straight sex, even animal sex.

No one knows exactly how to explain why women's genital responses are often so different from their subjective experience. But we always knew female sexuality was complicated.

Men were supposed to be simple. And in the initial experiments that showed women's arousal to be so strange, men did in fact look comparatively uncomplicated: Men's genital arousal tended to match their stated sexual orientation.

But more recent studies have shown male sexuality to be less simple than expected. For example, some gay men have the ability to be turned on by women, some are neutral, and a sizable number find the presence of a woman (say in an erotic video) to be a turn-off.

Denizet-Lewis in his current New York Times Magazine front-page article, "Bisexuality Comes Out of the Closet," reports a statement by one expert that "what makes a bisexual person may be less about what they're strongly attracted to and more about what they're not averse to."

Aversion. Of course. Sexual disgust must surely be the dark matter of the erotic universe. Our ancestors clambered around on all fours like dogs with their noses in their neighbors' behinds. But now we walk upright, with our sensibilities above our waists, and we learn from childhood to be ambivalent about what goes on down below. Then of course we amplify the ambivalence by wearing clothes.

Sex theorists talk about a "dual-control" model of human sexuality, where a person's sexual tastes may depend partly on what excites them and partly on what they fail to suppress.

Women seem to suppress everything that's not consistent with their stated sexual orientation. Gay and straight men don't seem to suppress much at all. But bisexual men seem to be diverse. Since activation and suppression in a bisexual man may be closely matched, whether he ever develops his bisexual potential may depend a lot on the influence of his culture.

There's no denying that culture in the developed West has become much more tolerant of sexual differences. The arc of sexual culture is long, but it bends toward diversity. Female bisexuality has had a seat at the table of accepted diversities for a while. Male bisexuality is now waiting for a seat at that table.

It's been debated for a long time whether male bisexuality is real or not. That debate seems close to being settled now.

The kind of sex research now settling that debate keeps showing us that as a sexual species we're just a little stranger than we thought.

This is interesting. Are you saying that there is a belief out there that gay men nay not be gay at all? Or at the very least, not 100% attracted to their male peers?

That's interesting. I read an article here on Psyche Today about female and male casual sex -- for gay singles. Gay men do engage in casual sex, just like how straight men engage as well(for the record, no, I did not know gay men like casual sex, lol). But for lesbians, is not that simple. In my mind, after reading the article(I apologize, I forgot your name), I'm thinking, "Well, yeah. They're women". Of course it will make sense for women to not go around and sleep around with anyone. But the fact that lesbians and gay men respectively do what heterosexual single individuals do, respectively, was somehow big news. And I think it connects to this article.

To be fair, this is a different approach. We're talking biology, and some cultural elements about how gay men may in fact be bi after all. I do find it interesting in our culture how bi-women have become accepted in a short period of time. It makes sense on paper that they can be sexually attractive to not only women, but men as well(and animals as well). But for men, being bi does have a negative tone to it. As men, is interesting how two women kissing of physically active towards one another can be socially acceptable to men. To us, is hot. But if men were to come out and done the same thing, we're blind. The world is over. There's no question that traditional and social roles still have a powerful affect in our perception of other genders. Is it possible that, I don't know, gender identity is more real than we are willing to admit?

I'm not one of those who thinks that men as leaders and women as bossy have a bad ring to it. I do find it interesting how the media is paying attention to this cultural plight, allegedly. I think it says a lot about the woman, not the man, about how they feel about these traditional terms. Same thing if men say these things about women. Is probably you, not her. But as we continue to unlock our behaviors, socio-biologically and culturally, the answer may have been right in front of us this whole time.

I had no idea this was an issue. I thought bisexuality was generally accepted in both makes and females and that the problem was bisexuals trying to suggest that everyone is bisexual and it's strict homosexuality or heterosexuality that doesn't exist.

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About the Author

Stephen Snyder, M.D. is a Manhattan sex and relationship therapist, physician and speaker. Clinical Assoc Professor, Icahn School of Med in NYC. Helping people focus on what really matters in lovemaking.